Elon Musk is reportedly seeking to acquire OpenAI for a staggering $97 billion. In response, Oatman simply stated, "No, thanks."

According to reports on February 5, Elon Musk is leading a group of investors in a $97bn bid to take control of OpenAI, the non-profit parent company of the AI research institution. Musk's lawyer Marc Toberoff filed a formal bid on Monday, according to the reports.

Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, responded to the acquisition proposal with humour on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter): "No thanks, but if you're willing to go up to $9.74bn, we can buy Twitter."

Musk and Altman were co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, when they established the company as a non-profit research institution to advance artificial intelligence. But as OpenAI made breakthroughs in generative AI, particularly with the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, the company rapidly commercialised and attracted significant investment.

Last year, SoftBank planned a $40bn investment in OpenAI, which pushed the company's valuation to $26bn. The commercialisation of OpenAI's business model diverged from Musk's vision for AI, and he even sued OpenAI, alleging violations of antitrust laws and attempting to prevent its transformation into a for-profit company.

At the same time, Musk has established his own competitors in the AI race - xAI - and launched his own large language model, Grok, in an attempt to challenge OpenAI's market dominance.

It is worth noting that OpenAI is currently working with SoftBank and Oracle (ORCL.US) on a project called "StarGate".

Reports suggest that Musk's acquisition offer is supported by xAI, and if the deal is successful, xAI and OpenAI may merge. Additionally, Valor Equity Partners, Baron Capital, 8VC and Ari Emanuel's investment fund have also joined the bidding.

As early as January 7 this year, Musk's lawyer Toberoff sent a letter to the attorneys general of California and Delaware, requesting a bidding process for OpenAI's acquisition. This move indicates that Musk may be taking legal steps to push the acquisition deal forward.